


Can't Sleep

by CasperWild



Category: Young Justice (Cartoon)
Genre: Angst, Gen, References to Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-11
Updated: 2013-04-11
Packaged: 2017-12-08 03:44:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,067
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/756659
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CasperWild/pseuds/CasperWild
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Being a Robin is a tough job, tougher than Tim Drake thought it'd be but since his horrible run-in with the Joker 4 years ago, he's never been the same. It's his first year of highschool and he's trying to sleep but he knows better.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Can't Sleep

Sleeping peacefully, sweet dreams, long nights of resting- those were all things Tim Drake was robbed of. The list went on, his childhood, his complete sanity, his peace of mind- it was all stolen from him and when it was, he was no older than ten. Being Robin the Boy Wonder was a beautiful, empowering thing but it was also a lot more dangerous than Tim had ever thought. For a Robin known for his cleverness, back then he was dumb. 

He had never saw it coming, the night the Joker stole him away from under Batman’s wing and strapped him down. Every time he closes his eyes he hears that laughter. The tiniest static shocks reminds him of the electricity the Joker coursed through his body to get him to scream and boy, did he scream… Tim remembers every waking moment of the torture even though it’s the only thing he’s ever tried so hard to forget. He remembers every beg and plea that left his lips and every secrete he exposed until he was nothing more than mush. But most of all he remembers staring at the door across the room, eyes full of tears though all the pain as he waited for Batman to come in and save him. 

He’s coming to save me… I know he is… Tim remembers thinking but Batman didn’t come until it was too late. His mentor, his hero wasn’t there until Tim was already so ruined that he could never trust himself to go to sleep at night. Tim still can’t sleep at night. Batman was the only father that Tim had left back then, the only person Tim could lean on to protect him and the only person he could trust to keep him save. But that was his biggest mistake. Bruce couldn’t keep him save. Just like Bruce couldn’t keep Jason safe. 

When Tim lays his head against his pillow, back to his room-mate, in a new school he’s scared to death will see the fearful boy beneath, his eyes are wide open. He can’t sleep with the images that wait behind his them because the grabby hands and red-painted grin of a mad man are waiting for him there. He’s tried to sleep many times but it all ends the same, screaming. The week Tim got back from everything all he could do was scream and no amount of comforting our counselling could do him any good. Tim was a lost soul and for the months that followed, that’s all he was. 

It wasn’t until the screaming stopped that Bruce could look at him again and people began to say he was doing better but in all honesty, his condition hadn’t changed a bit. He was still screaming, but on the inside instead and he wasn’t sleeping anymore, well, not really. The human body craved sleep and while Tim could provide it no rest, the occasional near-overdose of sleeping pills was enough to knock him out and keep the dreams at bay while supplying his body with what it needed. 

Yet that couldn’t work here, not when he had a room mate. Garfield Logan was a chipper kid, a really sweet guy so far as Tim knew and that’s exactly why he couldn’t expose this to him. Gar didn’t deserve Tim’s problems and he knew that if he told him, he’d would only worry and no one should have to worry about Tim Drake. 

That was Tim’s ideology for this entire situation, if I can fake it, just a little while longer then they can be happy… all of them.. So he faked it till he couldn’t anymore, till he felt so alone and so vulnerable that the entire bottle of pills in his hand looked appetizing. He clutched the bottle to his chest, heart hammering from a mix of fear and anticipation. Just like all those times back in Wayne manor, he was shaking. Tim shook so bad he feared the sound of his headboard bouncing against the wall would wake Gar. So he tried to breathe but the breaths didn’t come easily, it was like gasping for air underwater and his lips just barely at the surface, sucking water down with it. It was painful, something as easy as breathing made his chest cavity shake like it was on the verge of collapsing. Then his mind started to go as well. 

Tim remembered all those times that he looked at Batman with hope that he’d see the crumbling robin he had become with bright blue eyes that screamed, save me. But that seemed to be something Batman was bad at. He could save the world but the robin was crushed beneath his wings. Tim remembered how much it hurt to drag himself from a a bed he couldn’t sleep in and put on an outfit that tore him apart to wear. It was no longer a symbol of justice, it was a memento to the death of Tim Drake. There was no other way to put that because as much as Tim hated the Joker for what he did, he hated himself for letting it happen even more. Tim Drake died in that warehouse with the Joker by his side and his “father” far away.

He gripped the top of the bottle, shaky hands spilling the pills onto the bed but that didn’t matter because with every little white pill that decorated the sheets, his hands worked faster than bullets to pop in his mouth. In the back of his head, Tim was still screaming and the laughter of the Joker was deafening along with it. The words from his murderer were repeated over and over again like a mantra of why he hated himself so badly and once again, when Tim Drake hit bottom, it felt like it was hitting back. 

 

The pills went down like unchewed rock candy, ripping at the flesh of his throat but it didn’t matter how it felt because it only took a little while for his brain to numb and the voices to shut up. It was a blissful silence that overtook the shattered fourteen year old, blissful in the most tragic way. Unconsciousness was sweet, almost like death and for now it’d do. Tim didn’t have to worry about nightmares or more ‘what if’s, it was just black. 

And black was better than seeing red.


End file.
